The Secret of the Fall and Rectification of Elisha ben Abuyah

Lesson No. 2045 | No. 27 Continuation of Likutey Moharan Torah 3, 9 Iyar 5741

This article by Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a reveals the root of the fall of Elisha ben Abuyah, which began with studying Torah for ulterior motives (shelo lishmah) and listening to improper melodies. The article reveals how, even within the abyss, a burning desire to do teshuvah (repentance) raged within Elisha, and how Rabbi Meir worked to rectify his soul.

A Fire of the Sitra Achra (Other Side): The Root of the Fall

Elisha ben Abuyah, known as "Acher" (the Other), explained to his student Rabbi Meir the true reason for his spiritual downfall. He told him, "Do you know why I did not succeed and why I fell? Because my father did not send me to learn Torah for the sake of the Torah. My father sent me to learn Torah for the sake of fire."

Indeed, he received the fire he asked for, but it was a fire of the Sitra Achra (the realm of evil). He transferred the immense power of Torah that he possessed to the Other Side. When someone displeased him, he would look at them and burn them with the gaze of his eyes. He had a fiery power in his eyes to kill people. This was the fire that the father merited his son to have, because his original intention was for the sake of fire and power, and not for the sake of the Torah itself.

The Heavenly Voice Meant to Shake Him

Once, Elisha ben Abuyah was riding his horse on Yom Kippur near the Holy of Holies. At that moment, a Bas Kol (Heavenly Voice) emerged and said:

"Return, rebellious children, except for Acher."

When Elisha heard this, he fell into absolute despair. He said to himself that if such a Heavenly Voice emerged, he had no chance and was completely lost. But the truth is entirely different. The Heavenly Voice did not come to reject him, but only to reflect his current reality and to shake him to his core.

As we know, there is wisdom, Torah, and prayer that are higher than prophecy, whereas a Heavenly Voice is on the level of prophecy. The Heavenly Voice came to tell him, "Your situation right now is like this—come, do teshuvah (repentance) and change the situation!" The goal was to jolt him so that he would begin to do teshuvah and realize how far he had deteriorated, but he interpreted it as an absolute rejection.

The Deterioration and Persecution Against Torah Scholars

The beginning of Elisha ben Abuyah's mistaken path was when he thought he could rectify Greek melodies and Greek music. He thought he could rectify heretical books and extract lost souls from them, just as a true tzaddik does. But instead of rectifying them, he fell in there himself, became a heretic, and began to sin and cause the masses to sin.

He would run to the yeshivas, pull students away from Torah study, and tempt them with material professions. He would say to one, "You will be a shoemaker and become a millionaire," and to another, "You will be a tailor and own a clothing factory." He knew how to identify the spiritual fortune (mazal) of each person, and thus he caused people who were experiencing a crisis in their learning to abandon the yeshivas, until he uprooted almost all the yeshivas in the Land of Israel.

Not only that, but he even became an actual persecutor of the Jewish people. When the Romans issued decrees forcing the desecration of Shabbos, the Jews tried to bypass the Torah prohibitions. For example, a bench that one person could carry would be carried by two people, so as to only violate a Rabbinic prohibition. Elisha ben Abuyah revealed the Jews' halachic loopholes to the Romans, causing them to force the Jewish people to violate actual Torah prohibitions.

The Stuttering Child and the Inner Cry for Teshuvah

Once, Rabbi Meir said to Elisha, "Let us go to the synagogue and ask the schoolchildren which verse they are learning." They went through twelve synagogues, and in each one, the child recited a verse hinting that there was no hope for Elisha.

When they reached the thirteenth synagogue, there was a stuttering child. The child wanted to recite the verse:

"But to the wicked, God says: 'What right have you to declare My statutes, or take My covenant in your mouth?'"

But because he stuttered, it sounded as if he said, "But to Elisha, God says..."

When Elisha heard this, the Talmud says that some say he declared, "If I had a sword in my hand, I would cut you into thirteen pieces," and some say he actually did cut him up and sent each piece to a different study hall.

The secret behind this terrible act, as I heard from Rabbi Shabtai Yudelevitz zt"l, is that Elisha wanted to do teshuvah (repentance) so much, and his heart burned for teshuvah, that out of sheer anger and frustration over feeling unable to return, he reacted with such violence. He was essentially crying out to Heaven: "You are to blame that I am not doing teshuvah!". This is how the desire to return to Hashem burns in the heart of every Jew, even the most distant.

Tears of Teshuvah at the Last Moment

The Jerusalem Talmud relates that at the end of his days, when Elisha was on his deathbed, Rabbi Meir ran to him and said: "Do teshuvah!". Elisha asked: "How can I return? After all, we learned that one who sins and causes the masses to sin is not given the opportunity to do teshuvah, and now I am dying, in the very last second?".

Rabbi Meir answered him:

"'You return man to contrition (daka)' - until the very crushing (dakduka) of the soul."

Even in the last second, it is possible to do teshuvah. When Elisha heard this, he began to cry, and he passed away amidst his weeping. These tears were the clear sign that he had truly done teshuvah.

After his passing, they did not want to judge him to Gehenna (Hell) because of the immense Torah he had learned, but they also could not bring him into Gan Eden (Paradise) because of his sins. Rabbi Meir intervened in Heaven so that they would place him in Gehenna in order to cleanse him of his iniquities, saying: "When will I die and cause smoke to rise from his grave?". And indeed, so it was. Two hundred years later, Rabbi Yochanan came, took him out of Gehenna, and brought him into Gan Eden, wondering how the tzaddikim of previous generations had not taken pity on him to rectify him earlier.

This entire painful story, the terrible spiritual descent of such a great Tanna (Mishnaic sage), started from one thing - hearing the melody of a wicked person. From here we learn how immense the influence of melodies is, and how much one must guard against melodies that corrupt the soul.

Lesson #2045